New Year with New Recipes!

Happy New Year! It’s time to get healthy and enjoy a fresh start . After two months of gluttony, i’m usually begging for fresh vegetables by January and that’s one of my favorite things about a new year. We don’t look back and everyone has such a positive view of the next year. During this time I always get excited to try new recipes with new ingredients.

Butternut Squash is a vegetable that I have been eyeing for a long time but have been completely terrified to try and cook with. Why? I’m not sure. I’ve always thought that I would need to be some master chef in order to make something delicious with this elusive vegetable. Well, with a new year I decided the other day that it was finally time! I went to our local grocery store, picked out my favorite looking squash and immediately went home to find a recipe.

After looking around on Key Ingredient, I decided that making a delicious soup was my best option. The recipes we’re very straight forward and offered a lot of flavors.

Cutting the butternut squash in half was the hardest part of this recipe but you have to work for a good meal right?! After about 10 minutes with some weird and shameful knife maneuvers, I finally cut the squash and scooped the seeds out of the middle. Then all I had to do was season the squash with salt and pepper and bake until tender.

The rest of the recipe was really focused on creating a base of flavors for the soup while the squash roasted in the oven for an hour (my oven took 1:10 minutes). That meant sautéing the onion and the apples and seasoning everything along the way.

Once the squash was tender and soft, I scooped the pieces into the soup and brought the mixture to a boil. Then finally, I lowered the temperature and simmered for around 15 minutes which was about the time I felt like the flavors had married together beautifully.

The final step in the soup making process was putting the whole dish in the blender and whipping everything together. I did this in batches because I had visions of scalding soup all over me and the floor. Then it was time! I served the soup in beautiful white bowls and enjoyed my accomplishment!

This soup was incredibly delicious and just the thing you need on a chilly night. It really wasn’t as complicated as I thought in my mind so maybe next week I will try a new vegetable…who knows?!